Platinum dance my poem 'Ayre'.

Platinum rehearsing piece inspired by 'Ayre'.

I'm thrilled that one of my poems, 'Ayre' has inspired a dance piece choreographed by Matthew Hawkins and to be performed by Platinum dance group this Sunday 6th December, 2pm at the Queen's Hall, Nicolson Street, Edinburgh as part of the Dance Base Christmas Show. See The Queens Hall

I've just got back from watching the rehearsal and it was an incredibly moving experience. Exquisite choreography evokes the sense of tides breaking either side of a peninsula (tombolo) not quite in sync but echoing each other conveyed through 'gesture' and 'breath' .  This is a multi-layered work with complex patterning of gesture - turning it into something rich and strange, speaking its own language, arising from my poem but becoming something utterly itself and other.  Accompanied by eerie electronic music, an extract from 'Alone in Your Company' composed by Fabienne Audeod, the hairs on the back of my neck rose!  A great honour to have this wonderful work inspired by my poem.

Here is the original poem:

                                                 AYRE
                                                     (Tombolo*, St Ninian's Isle)

                                           Airy and eerie:
                                           a stretch of pebbles, a peninsula,
                                           where the opera of the tide is ever
                                           answering, echoing
                                           gesture with gesture,
                                           breath with breath,
                                           ecstatic airs
                                           from elsewhere.


* A 'tombolo' is a peninsula of sand and gravel on which the tide breaks on both sides, not necessarily simultaneously but more like an echo and response.

                                         (From my pamphlet 'Flout' (HappenStance Press, 2015)

Matthew is a former member of the Royal Ballet School who has since gone on to become a choreographer of note.  He currently also teaches at Dance Base. See  http://www.Matthew Hawkins Dance

Platinum is a dance class for those aged 60+  which meets regularly on a termly basis at Dance Base.
        http://www.dancebase.co.uk/       Look under 'Contemporary'.